QUANTUM THEORY
At the turn of the twentieth century, the rigorous application of Newtonian mechanics promised to explain the workings of all physical systems. The study of physics seemed to reach the point of closure; however, a few problems loomed on the horizon. As physicists pushed the limits of their observations and of their imaginations to the scale of the very small, the central elements of a strange theory began to emerge. The hypothesis of Max Planck (1858-1947) that radiation from a black body was emitted at discrete, quantized energy levels rather than in a continuous spectrum was the fantastic insight which lead physicists to view nature in a fundamental different way. Albert Einstein invoked the quanta of light to explain a hitherto inexplicable physical effect. Niels Bohr (1885-1962) explained atomic structure and the spectrum of hydrogen by assuming that the atom was a fundamentally quantum object. The early discoveries of quantum theory and interpretations applied to the theory would call into question notions of absolute substance and causality originally held to be true of matter.

The mathematical formalism of quantum theory, or quantum mechanics, presented a counterintuitive picture of nature. The uncertainty principle of Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) and Bohr's principle of complementarity described a universe which seemed capriciously bent to hide her secrets from the probing instruments of science. Objects such as light and electrons would behave in mutually exclusive ways, as wave or particles, depending on how they were measured.

Quantum theory stands in direct contradiction of Einstein's theory of relativity in that the universe of the quantum is discrete and non-local and the universe of Einstein is continuous and local. The next great revolution in physical science promises to be the resolution of classical theories with the quantum theory.

Go to more on "quantum theory" (forthcoming)


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